Feature
Light Sailing into the Great Beyond
Powering spacecraft by radiation pressure from solar or laser light, once the province of science fiction, is becoming increasingly practical with advances in photonic technology and the space economy.
An artist’s depiction of NASA’s NEA Scout. [NASA]
Just over a century after the days of the Wright brothers and other aeronautical pioneers, the current period marks the dawn of an age of light sails—materials that use radiation pressure, from the sun or from lasers, for propelling vehicles through outer space. Recent demonstration missions—such as the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun (IKAROS) spacecraft launched in 2010 by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); the NanoSail-D of NASA, also launched in 2010; and particularly the Planetary Society’s LightSail 1 (2015) and LightSail 2 (2019) mission—have captured the public imagination.
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